I am not sure it is strictly a situational issue. He seems very uncomfortable out there.

That said, with Magette and Prince ahead of him, his chances of ever playing the 3 are low.

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JJ has never played well at the 4. Ever. He did pretty darn good at the 3 though when Tay was out for a season. But for political reasons, it seems Tay can't have a capable backup. Look, right now with several good options at small forward, we are putting an undersized Maggette there. Just makes no sense at all. It would seem that between Dumars and what he hires as coaches the idea of a backup 3 is simply out of the question.

Guys who could be the backup 3 and do just fine: Daye, JJ, Singler, Middleton. But we are using Maggette who can't defend the position at all.

I guess I said this in chat. Last game, with very little effort, coach could have switched the roles of Singler and Maggette. Since Singler has began starting, all coach has to do is bring Maggette in as the first sub, for Tay. This moves Singler to small forward. It leaves us with two excellent outside shooters in there, both of whom can guard their position. Now, mind you, I am reluctant to say Maggette is actually ready to play until I see him go full bore without reinjuring his leg, but at least he would not be at such a height disadvantage at the 2. Meanwhile, Singler is definitely disadvantaged in the quicks department as a 2.

Of course, this still leaves Singler in at shooting guard to start games, which has worked so far. But really, we should just start Maggette at shooting guard, and then have Tay come in with the 2nd unit. And have Kim English, or Middleton, come in as the shooting guard on the 2nd unit. This gives:

Max is a good guy but he's dead to me as a Piston. Yup, he's playing good and that's WHY I'm showering him with the Hateraide. If Jason Maxiell could ever decide to show up for all 82, he'd be a solid player in the league. He brings it every 6th game or so (or...every 3rd or 4th game this being a contract year and all).

I always thought that JMax was going to subsist on meals that feature hearty helpings of babies. ...all he's ever done is merely snack on babies.

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We are so use to Max being the underachiever on the post Flip teams, that we are used to showering him and Bynum with the so called hateraide. They are associated with the current "bad" Pistons....

This season he has been the one constant, so I am cool with him getting 25 minutes off the bench if needed.

In Jerebko's rookie season, he played almost exactly half his time at SF and half at PF with a small remainder at SG.

At SF: His PER was 13.1 and the opponents' PER was 18.6 for a net of -5.5 (i.e. he got slaughtered)

At PF: His PER was 18.8 and the opponents' PER was 19.1 for a net of -0.3 (he broke even)

Seems like the problem was that he couldn't produce offensively when he spent time on the perimeter, probably as the plays dictated that he do. In both positions, his opponents had substantially more assists than him and they shot extremely high eFG%'s. Jerebko's shooting was better from the PF spot where he probably got more garbage points.

This year the trend continues where his counterparts are just shooting well over .500 eFG's. Jerebko is struggling this year with his own FG%, as it is down almost 100 bps in every measure (3P% at .200 vs .300, eFG% at .419 instead of .503, etc.

Except for his shooting percentages though, he has been amazingly consistent in all of his seasons on a per minute basis... like spooky consistent. We know exactly what we have I would say.

This year, he has played exclusively at PF and is getting edged in FG% and trounced in rebounding and shot blocking. The stats from this year really point to a guy who isn't big enough to play the position. This about it this way- when Drummond takes over the C spot, Monroe is our PF. No way in heck that JJ could keep Monroe away from the hoop and off the glass. Other teams have more athletic guys than Monroe playing there.

In Jerebko's rookie season, he played almost exactly half his time at SF and half at PF with a small remainder at SG.

At SF: His PER was 13.1 and the opponents' PER was 18.6 for a net of -5.5 (i.e. he got slaughtered)

At PF: His PER was 18.8 and the opponents' PER was 19.1 for a net of -0.3 (he broke even)

Seems like the problem was that he couldn't produce offensively when he spent time on the perimeter, probably as the plays dictated that he do. In both positions, his opponents had substantially more assists than him and they shot extremely high eFG%'s. Jerebko's shooting was better from the PF spot where he probably got more garbage points.

This year the trend continues where his counterparts are just shooting well over .500 eFG's. Jerebko is struggling this year with his own FG%, as it is down almost 100 bps in every measure (3P% at .200 vs .300, eFG% at .419 instead of .503, etc.

Except for his shooting percentages though, he has been amazingly consistent in all of his seasons on a per minute basis... like spooky consistent. We know exactly what we have I would say.

This year, he has played exclusively at PF and is getting edged in FG% and trounced in rebounding and shot blocking. The stats from this year really point to a guy who isn't big enough to play the position. This about it this way- when Drummond takes over the C spot, Monroe is our PF. No way in heck that JJ could keep Monroe away from the hoop and off the glass. Other teams have more athletic guys than Monroe playing there.

Tweener.

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Good post. Jerebko is the guy I'd be trying to trade before word gets out.

Jerebko, regardless of the stats, had all the games in which we applauded him heavily, as a rookie replacing Prince in the starting unit. As a small forward. But note, I never liked him that much and I noted back then, hey we were losing game after game despite all the hustle people loved from Jerebko. We only won 27 games that year. Ouch. Missed the playoffs for the first time in like forever. Jerebko is really too slow as a small forward. Still, you can hide one slower player on defense, if you simply recognize the fact the guy is slow and rotate to help him out. Now, in that year, we saw a lot of real nice rebounding games from Jerebko, at the small forward position. And a lot of hustle. And me, I saw a lot of too slow a foot defense. I thought it might be possible to get enough of an advantage from JJ's rebounding - and some ability to post up smaller players, to make it worth the extra rotation on defense. But no, not anything like the situation with the Teacher, or Corliss, where helping them out on D paid huge dividends on the offensive end.

I'm totally backin' Kyle Singler and have been since I saw him in the Orlando summer league. It's been a long time since the Pistons have had a swingman that upon receiving a pass, didn't have to conduct a prolonged evaluation of the situation for a fe minutes prior to commiting to either drive, shoot or move the rock to another player.

I see his "floor" as being a little better than he is now. I see his "ceiling" being a scorer in the high teens, with 5 rebounds and 5 assists each and every night.

Guys gotta get their minutes where ever they can. If we're deep at SF then JJ must make the sacrifice at PF. Just know that and help. Max is the same way as he'll see bigger guys nightly. If the losing continues Frank must make the adjustments and JD needs to get the body that fits.

Question, how many years have we been waiting on "Good" Tay? He is a career 13ppg player. "Good" Tay is only effective when he's the 4th or 5th option on a contender.

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Good Tay plays much better defense than bad Tay, and moves the ball around much more effectively, too. Both good and bad Tay will score about 13 ppg, but Good Tay does it within the offense without going into Isotayshaun mode.

Good Tay plays much better defense than bad Tay, and moves the ball around much more effectively, too. Both good and bad Tay will score about 13 ppg, but Good Tay does it within the offense without going into Isotayshaun mode.

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OK, that's "Good" when the offense consists of having Chauncy Billups, Rip Hamiltona and Rasheed Wallace in their prime. The only way Tay is any "Good" on THIS team is if he can score about 17ppg....and he can't; isn't it funny how Singler can mange to FIND 15ppg playing within this offense?

Two off days in a row. Can't wait for tomorrow to come and another game to watch.

Meanwhile, what I would really like to see is coach find what works - by playing different, logical combinations of players. Ones that win, keep using them - but still look for better. By the end of this season, we should know who among Singler, English, Maggette, or Middleton is our best option to start at shooting guard, and which one should be the backup. And we should know if JJ, Middleton, Daye or Singler - or Prince himself, is the best backup small forward to use.

Our bigs rotation has to be expanded to include Kravtsov, or if not him, Dumars has to get somebody out there who can at least defend the position in case of foul troubles. (Center or power forward.)

It should be even experimented with if we can get enough speed and length in there to let JMAX play at small forward some. Like maybe Knight, Middleton, JMAX, Monroe, Drummond as a unit.

CV should be just traded. Nobody really wants to see any more experimentation in that direction.

And finally, point guard. Stuckey should backup Knight, and really, another guard needs to be brought in from somewhere to replace Bynum so we have an emergency point guard who can at least do two things, defend the point position, and distribute the ball. If this person can shoot the ball well or drive to the basket well, great, but the first two things are a must. (and Bynum can do neither.)

I'd like to see CV and/or Daye for a healthy stretch of 5 games or so. If they happen to play well offensively, it might lure in a sucker GM.

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I don't understand a few things.

1. That anyone thinks anyone else wants Daye or Charlie. 2. That people don't already know Daye or Charlie's games 3. That Daye or Charlie will play good enough to be traded, but not good enough to keep 4. That a GM bad enough to trade for Daye or Charlie has talent to send back.